Cubism Vol. 39: Ready for GameCube SP?

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Should GCN receive the same treatment that the GBA got? We examine.

By IGN Staff

The following editorial, part of the Cubism series, is written by IGN freelancer Stephen Totilo. Newly assigned, Stephen is taking the reins in place of our previous writer Gavin Frankle, who recently became to inundated with other projects to upkeep his regular output.

The thoughts expressed within are the sole opinion of Stephen, and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the IGNcube editors. The purpose of this article series is to let talented fans speak their minds on various topics about their favorite consoles. We hope you enjoy it. Any feedback you have can be sent to insider_mail@ign.com.

Poor chunky GameCube, you must hate the Game Boy Advance. You must hate that tiny older sibling of yours that everyone seems to like. You must loathe mama Nintendo's suggestion that the only way you can be successful is to do things that involve your pipsqueak brother. And it must irk you that it wasn't enough that tens of millions of people already liked the little guy even if he was a little bit dim. He still got an image makeover to make him look even cooler, to make even more people like him, while you? You got nothing but more abuse from the bullies at Sony and Microsoft.

So it goes that the Game Boy Advance, already a far more successful piece of technology than the GameCube will ever be, was given the SP treatment this year and pulled even further ahead of its home console counterpart. The addition of the lit screen, the move from AA batteries to rechargeable lithium, and the change to a clamshell design, seem like they were granted by some alternate-reality Nintendo, one that doesn't simply release stripped down hardware and let it languish (N64 without CD-ROM or a sound chip, memory cards without enough memory, and maybe, if they sold vehicles, cars with three wheels instead of four?). The Nintendo that put out the SP actually corrected its errors by creating a model that solved the problems you knew about -- the GBA screen was too hard to see -- and even problems you had no idea existed -- the GBA didn't look as cool as it could have, not compared to its redesign.

Nintendo's GameCube evokes its own set of frustrations, and like the Game Boy, it might benefit from an SP-like overhaul. None of the GameCube's problems, aside from the already re-done paint-job, are as simple to fix nor as singularly in need of attention as the Game Boy's screen-lighting issue, but plenty could be done to rehabilitate the image of the GameCube. I've done some serious (and some not so serious) thinking about what could constitute a GameCube SP. I've played by the rules of the GBA SP, which themselves seem to be the rules of any potentially successful hardware add-on or revamp:

1.) The new model has to play the games of the original.

2.) Developers don't like making games that require the features of a hardware add-on or upgrade, since they rightly assume that most people will only ever own the base system. Why make a game that requires the N64 expansion pak if most N64 owners don't own it? Because of this, the added features of a GCN SP should be cool, but shouldn't require tailor-made development that can't work on the GCN proper.